Learning, Complementarities, and Asynchronous Use of Technology / Boyan Jovanovic, Dmitriy Stolyarov.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jovanovic, Boyan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Stolyarov, Dmitriy.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w5870.

NBER working paper series no. w5870

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1997.

Summary:

This paper deals with processes that require several complementary inputs subject to improvements in quality. If after a quality upgrade one of these inputs requires a period of learning before it can be used effectively, then in general it will pay to purchase the inputs at different dates -- the purchases will be asynchronous. That is so because it is wasteful to tie up funds in the other inputs which will be underutilized until the date learning is over. We provide evidence that technology has been used asynchronously in the automobile industry, in the television broadcasting industry, in electricity supply, and in railways, and we argue that our model helps explain this evidence.

Notes:

Print version record

January 1997.